When you drive across states like Iowa, you’ll see wind turbines everywhere – they tend to rise up out of hills like an army of really tall soldiers. A majority of wind turbine towers are currently made of steel, as that’s what was decided upon when these giants became popular in the 1990s. Reinforced concrete towers have also been around since then, but aren’t used in the majority of applications.
Last week, the benefits of using concrete for wind turbine towers were widely publicized when a group of research engineers at Iowa State University published a story about their concrete vs steel studies. They found that concrete wind turbine towers will quite possibly be able to outperform their steel counterparts. The story gives 6 advantages that concrete would offer over steel models:
- increasing steel’s 20-year tower life by using ultra-high performance and high-strength concrete
- easier transportation because pieces are small enough for standard trucking
- precast concrete industry is established across the country
- less reliance on imported steel for turbine towers
- smaller precast pieces can be assembled on site in multiple ways
- the concept is versatile and towers can be tailored for any turbine size or even a height beyond 100 meters.
These aren’t the only benefits! Fabcon has been making concrete wind turbine towers for several years, and we know precast. For an overview about our precast concrete wind turbine towers and more about concrete’s superiority over steel, visit our wind turbine page, and be sure to download our turbine tower brochure.
To read the full Iowa State study article, visit the Iowa State University website.